Welcome to America. Survive the wilderness, establish yourself, meet someone special, raise a family, and dominate. Gain power as President, deliver justice as Sheriff, fight for your tribe as Chief, or show some southern hospitality as Governor.

Early Access Game

Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.

Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you
should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

What the developers have to say:

Why Early Access?

“Our primary goal is to develop a great survival game. We believe in the value of player feedback. Early access is a way for us to further develop the game while receiving feedback from fellow gamers that will help to shape the game for its full release.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We plan to have Heat in Early Access for at least 12 months. It may extend beyond this based on features yet to be completed.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“Throughout the Early Access period the game will offer more items, more gear, and deeper player progression. We will be polishing the game and fixing bugs to further improve the core game loop for final release.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“We have 64GB in content for the player to enjoy and explore in a persistent online world for up to 32 players.

We have spent a large amount of time ensuring key systems are server side to prevent many hacks at the source and have also added and worked with industry leading anti-hack software. We will continue to improve upon our game's security throughout Early Access.

Heat is a game designed and developed to take advantage of the powerful high end PC platform. In addition to anti-hack, much of our time has been dedicated to optimization. We hope to continue to improve optimization in order to reach as wide of an audience as possible.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“Price will remain the same throughout Early Access and Release.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“We welcome player feedback and will take it into account when steering the development and design of the game. Bug and exploit reports are valuable to us and will also be very welcomed. Please submit all feedback and bugs to the Steam Discussion Board for Heat. Please submit all exploit reports to support@codehatch.com”

Available: January 2019

January 18

We're working real hard on Heat. The game is on track to release in the last half of January. We will update everyone as soon we have a concrete release date.

In the meantime, we've been having some fun in our play tests. Here is some new screenshots showcasing a single story played out in Heat -

From Rags to Riches:

A couple players get together with their donkey. Note the man's sack- it's a custom design.

Every player gets to customize their own guild flag. This guild flag design is also used on each player's hobo sack. When you start the game, you get a hobo stick which allows you harvest and beat up on other players. When you die, you drop your sack, so other players can see who they killed by your sack's visuals.

About This Game

Welcome to America.

Survive the wilderness, establish yourself, meet someone special, raise a family, and dominate. Gain power as President, deliver justice as Sheriff, fight for your tribe as Chief, or show some southern hospitality as Governor.

It's the turn of the century on the American homestead. Heat will give you the pioneer experience of struggle and triumph first-hand.

Go Forth and Multiply

Start a family with other players or NPCs. During the process of love making, the male will have a chance of making the female pregnant. Once pregnant, the female will birth a newborn. The newborn grows to become a baby, the baby then grows up to be a child, the child eventually becomes an adult.

A second option is to adopt from an orphanage by purchasing a baby basket in the shipping catalog. The baby will be inside the basket delivered to you. Adoption is very expensive, but provides a guaranteed outcome, whereas the first option may not reliably result in pregnancy due to the possibility for weak seed.

Your children are a mix of the visual DNA of the two parents. Babies, children, and adults will need to feed and stay hydrated (players lactate to breastfeed their newborns). If you fail to care for your children, the government will take them from you for mistreatment.

Beware of other players, as they can adopt your newborns, babies, and children as their own if you are not nearby (as they would be considered abandoned). So, keep them secret, keep them safe.

Once your kids become adults you can equip them with outfits, gear, and weapons. They can help protect you when you are online. However, other players may decide to capture and restrain your adult kin, so best keep them packing heat.

Seats of Power

As President, you own the Whitehouse, a section of land south of the monument, one intern, a golden gun, and two secret service NPCs. You also get to set and collect a President’s land tax. The Sheriff gets a deputy, and also some firepower to deliver justice. As Chief, you have a section of land, a grand tepee, and 3 warriors. The Governor gets the Cottonwood Plantation, plenty of farm seed, and 3 peons.

Stockpiles and Shipping Bin

We introduce a new concept in stockpiles. Heavy goods require physical space for storage, so while you can still store light goods in your small containers, wood, stone, ore, and other heavy materials must be stored in large stockpiles. This gives players a visual representation of their goods, and since stockpiles take up space, thought must also go into defending them. Each player also can craft a stash container which accepts a mix of light and heavy goods to help get them started, but these come with limited slots.

Players may also build shipping bins. These can be placed in your base and you may sell harvested, crafted, and farmed goods in them for in-game currency. Shipping bins also come with a catalog with which you may order items using your hard earned in-game currency.

Environment

There are 20 unique biomes in Heat spread out over a 67km2 world, each with its own sub-biomes to explore. We developed a unique way to create dense forest floors which requires players to clear the land in order to build. Explore vast and diverse landscapes ranging from the cold mountainous peaks to the tropical seashores, and from the harsh deserts to the muggy swamplands. Built from the roots up using real-world photogrammetric data, experience next generation graphics in both variety and detail.

Road Building

Build roads in the game or create pads around your base using the rake tool. Players may build roads using a variety of materials ranging from wood chips, dirt, sand, gravel, pavement and more. Players may also place freshly cut lawn for a well-kept look.

Farming and Cooking

Get farm-ready with the hoe, watering can, sprinklers, and scythe. Each tool has its own set of tiers, and there are a variety of crops that may be planted. Fertilizers are also an important consideration for the aspiring farmer.

Once your crops have matured, harvest them and bring them to the cooking stations in order to produce a wide range of food types. You may also decide to sell your crops in your shipping bin and buy more seed for your farming operation.

Building & Crafting

Construct your new home - From a quick hobo shack, a rustic cabin deep in the woods, a refined mansion, or a giant fortress. Craft and place walls, floors, doors, windows, furniture, and other fixtures individually by your own design. Process goods with sawmills, tanneries, smelters and other workstations. These materials will aid in crafting at various workstations and purchasing blueprints. Protect your establishment with well-placed cannons and strategically planned fortifications using massive rampart building sections.

Survival

Gather and hunt for food to keep yourself strong. Collect a variety of raw materials from nature for use in crafting, building and refinement. Once you have the basics of sticks and stones down, you may begin your journey towards establishing yourself as an industrious and powerful colony or even President of the United States.

There will be struggles and fallbacks along the way. Your character may be killed and robbed, where everything he or she has equipped is taken. Your property may be broken into and looted by a gang of raiders lead by other players. But with plenty of resources and defensive tactics at your disposal, raiders will be in for a serious fight.

Combat & Capture

On your adventures you'll encounter other players who may or may not be friendly. Likewise, you may not be so friendly either given these tactics at your disposal:

- Fill 'em full of lead with plenty of handguns, rifles, shotguns and other firearms to craft.- Take the more silent approach with bows and javelins that will leave your foes looking like a pin cushion.- Get up in their face with melee instruments, or beat them down with some good old blunt force.- Capture, restrain, and put them into your interrogation dungeon with its various contraptions.- Messily dismember with a well-placed strike or shotgun blast.- Blow them to smithereens with artillery cannon fire and TNT.- Experience the thrill of vigilante justice from either a first or third person perspective.

Character Customization

Choose your gender and tune your appearance to your liking, including variations in skin tone, height and girth, the shape of facial features, hair or lack thereof, and voice tone.

Mounts, Livestock & Wildlife

The landscape is populated by a variety of American wildlife, all of which can be hunted - assuming you are not hunted yourself. But they can also be tamed, whether as livestock or as a beloved pet. You may ride tamed horses, as well as other animals - even bears!

Mature Content Description

The developers describe the content like this:

This Game may contain content not appropriate for all ages, or may not be appropriate for viewing at work: Frequent Violence or Gore, Sexual Content, General Mature Content.